Political and Legal Anthropology

The article informs about the conference Homo Faber-How Do We Work, How Did We Work?, which took place at the University of Warsaw in 2023. The text recalls the results of the fieldwork of Anna Zadrożyńska-an, an ethnologist, who started anthropological research on this topic in Poland. Then, it briefly presents research projects carried out in Poland using ethnographic methods, outlining the trajectory of changing approaches. In the conclusion, which is an introduction to the thematic part of the volume, it briefly presents the postconference articles included in this part.

Plato's Allegory of the Cave remains one of the most enduring metaphors for the human struggle between illusion and truth. In contemporary Ethiopia, the system of ethnic federalism introduced in 1995 through the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front's (EPRDF) constitutional design has institutionalized ethnic identity as the primary mode of political recognition. This article juxtaposes the allegory of the cave with Ethiopia's federal experiment, arguing that ethnic federalism, like the shadows on the cave wall, projects distorted realities of belonging, identity, and power. For millions, especially those of mixed heritage or diasporic backgrounds, the shadows become lived constraints that limit mobility, citizenship, and solidarity. Drawing on political theory, diaspora ethnographies, and philosophical reflection, the paper demonstrates that Ethiopia's governance is trapped in a cave of ethno-political categories. True emancipation requires reimagining federalism beyond identity essentialism, fostering a political community that values dialogical recognition, hybridity, and civic equality.

The paper examines the Philippines' One-China Policy, a diplomatic position the Philippines has held since 1975, recognizing that People's Republic of China (PRC) is the only legitimate government of China (People's Republic of China, Official Records of Foreign Relations, 2018). The Department of Foreign Affairs described its commitment to the One-China Policy as "Clear and unwavering," but many challenges confront this policy. In particular, tensions between Manila's diplomatic deference to Beijing and increasing pressure from China in the West Philippine Sea present a major challenge.

o fáto de",! ser analisado soh a ótica do Estatllto da Criança e do Adolescente (Lei n. IUiM). de 13 de jlllho de II)I){)). nos as pectos civis e penais. o Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente (ECA) adotou, em seu art. 1°, o princípio da proteção integral da criança e do adolescente, estendendo-se a todas as suas necessi dades e direitos, no sentido do pleno desenvolvimento de sua personalidade. E o seu art. 4° expressa que Ué dever da família, da comunidade, da sociedade em geral e do Poder Público, assegurar, com absoluta prioridade, a efetivação dos direitos referen tes.... à dignidade e ao respeito". Como corolário desses princípios, o art. 5° proíbe que a criança ou adolescente seja objeto de qualquer exploração, sendo punido, na forma da lei, qualquer atentado aos seus direitos fundamentais.

This article explores the intersection between transgender (trans) refugees' rights, faith and global development frameworks, emphasising the gaps in protections afforded to this vulnerable population. Despite recognition of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) claims under international law, trans refugees often face systemic discrimination, inadequate legal recognition, and barriers to inclusion within global development initiatives like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through an interdisciplinary lens that combines human rights, faith, critical migration, and queer theory, the article identifies structural limitations in refugee protection systems and development policies, highlighting how these frameworks often fail to address the unique challenges of trans refugees. The study proposes actionable solutions, including integrating SOGIspecific indicators into faith and global development frameworks, enhancing culturally competent Refugee Status Determination (RSD) processes, and fostering international cooperation for inclusive policymaking.

This article explores the intersection between transgender (trans) refugees' rights, faith and global development frameworks, emphasising the gaps in protections afforded to this vulnerable population. Despite recognition of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) claims under international law, trans refugees often face systemic discrimination, inadequate legal recognition, and barriers to inclusion within global development initiatives like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through an interdisciplinary lens that combines human rights, faith, critical migration, and queer theory, the article identifies structural limitations in refugee protection systems and development policies, highlighting how these frameworks often fail to address the unique challenges of trans refugees. The study proposes actionable solutions, including integrating SOGIspecific indicators into faith and global development frameworks, enhancing culturally competent Refugee Status Determination (RSD) processes, and fostering international cooperation for inclusive policymaking.

Kujtesa është një subjekt që ngjall shumë debate dhe një debat i shtuar mbi të mbetet pa dyshim kujtesa e diasporës. Pier Nora (Pierre Nora) këmbëngul se vendndodhja e njeriut është foleja më e natyrshme e kujtesës dhe se ndonjëherë ajo mund të marrë tipare artificiale, në përpjekjen tonë për të kujtuar këtë vendndodhje. Sipas Norasë, kur lëvizim nga mjedisi parësor, ne krijojmë "zona të kujtesës". "Zonat e kujtesës" ngrenë qëllimisht arkiva dhe kujtesa jonë reale ekziston vetëm në një vend të qëndrueshëm e të pandryshueshëm. Në këto "zona kujtese", kujtesa kristalizohet dhe sekreton vetveten, sepse nuk kemi më mjedise të vërteta të kësaj kujtese të vijueshme, që të jenë të qëndrueshme, gjeografike e përgjithësuese, ku ajo të rrjedhë e pashenjuar dhe pa ndier nevojën të kundërpërgjigjet, duke krijuar histori. Kujtesa e diasporës ofron kushte mjaft të mira për të hulumtuar të tilla argumente, sepse emigrantët jo vetëm që hyjnë në një territor të ri, ku zhvillojnë kujtime të një tjetër natyre prej vendit nga janë larguar, po ndonjëherë edhe në këtë territor nuk ndihen tërësisht të plotësuar dhe duke dëshiruar rikthimin në vendin e parë, kujtimet e reja nuk duket të jenë të lidhura me një vend të qëndrueshëm e të pandryshueshëm, duke ofruar pamundësinë e krijimit të një kujtese reale dhe të jetuarin e vazhdueshëm në një "zonë kujtese". Një nga lëmet më me interes për të hulumtuar zonat e kujtesës e kujtesën reale në diasporë është padyshim letërsia e diasporës. Ky punim do të hulumtojë disa prej veprave në prozë të autorëve shqiptarë në diasporë, me synimin për të kuptuar raportin sasior e cilësor mes arkivimit të kujtimeve falë "zonave të kujtesës" e kujtesës së rrjedhshme reale, në vepra si ato të Elvira Donesit, Ardian Vehbiut, Durim Taçit, Anisa Markarjanit e Elvis Malajt.
Fjalë kyçe: letërsia, kujtesa, diaspora, zonat e kujtesës
*Kumtesë e mbajtur në Edicionin XIX të Javës së Bibliotekës në Kosovë, 5-11 shtator 2022

A pedofilia é uma problemática séria enfrentada nos dias de hoje, principalmente com o advento da tecnologia, que se constitui o ambiente mais propício para esses indivíduos se esconderem. A sociedade, inclusive o judiciário, tem uma visão distorcida da pedofilia e acredita que qualquer abusador de crianças é pedófilo o que não é verdade. Necessário se faz a compreensão mais adequada da temática para que Estado possa fazer a abordagem mais acertada e eficiente. O ponto nevrálgico dessa situação é que a pena privativa de liberdade não possui o efeito reparador a esses indivíduos, uma vez que não se tratam de meros pervertidos, mas de pessoas com um problema psiquiátrico intenso que bloqueia a sua autodeterminação. Nesse sentido o melhor artificio para a reabilitação desses sujeitos é o tratamento multidisciplinar com médicos de diversas especialidade e um profissional psicólogo, junto com tratamento medicamentoso, devendo inclusive a sociedade e o Estado estar receptivo à apreciação ...

This volume has two aims. The first is empirical. We aim to comparatively
explore, through a broad panorama of topics, the means and uses of symbolic power that were employed by religiopolitical elites in order to assert their legitimacy and dominance in two polities: Poland and Norway. It is our
contention that the key to understanding the means and dynamics of political order in the peripheral polities during the era of Europeanization (1000–1300) lies in exploring how the peripheral elites sought to legitimize themselves. wojtek jezierski, hans jacob orning, and grzegorz pac18
The volume thus focuses on the period between the moment Poland and
Norway and their ruling elites joined the Latin Christendom and thus were
influenced by European culture around the year 1000 and the end of the
thirteenth century, when both countries coalesced as stable kingdoms. The
second aim is more general and occasionally experimental. By reflecting on
the similarities and differences between the Polish and Norwegian examples,
which are seldom considered outside their traditional geographical context,
we seek to identify novel ways of understanding the conditions and factors
that shaped religiopolitical behaviour on the peripheries and influenced
relations between the peripheral elites and European centres.

Between the years 1000 and 1300, the two developing polities of Norway and Poland often followed similar trends. Both realms were located on what was considered the periphery of Europe, both joined Latin Christendom — and with it, the wider sphere of European cultural influence — at the turn of the first millennium, and both, by the end of the thirteenth century, had largely coalesced as stable kingdoms. Yet while the histories of these two countries have long been studied along national lines, it remains rarer for them to be considered outside of their traditional geographical context, and studied via comparison with events elsewhere.

This innovative volume seeks to explore the means and uses of symbolic power that were employed by religiopolitical elites in order to assert their legitimacy and dominance by taking an explicitly comparative approach and dual perspective on these two polities. What stories did elites tell themselves and others about their deservedness to rule, what spaces and objects did they utilize in order to project their elevated status, and how did struggle and rivalry form part of their societal dominance? Formed from chapters co-written by experts in Polish and Norwegian history, this unique volume not only reflects on the similarities and differences between events in these two polities, but also more broadly offers conceptual tools and comparative frameworks that can enhance our wider understanding of the conditions and factors that shaped religiopolitical behaviour on the peripheries.

Parte-se de uma compreensão mais ampla da autonomia: não apenas como econômica, que indubitavelmente é importante para as mudanças nas vidas das mulheres, mas como um processo que também abrange a autonomia política e cultural. A Caderneta foi criada pelo Centro de Tecnologias Alternativas da Zona da Mata (CTA-ZM) em parceria com o Movimento de Mulheres da Zona da Mata e Leste de Minas em 2011, a partir do Programa de Formação Mulheres e Agroecologia. Para saber mais busque Cardoso et al., 2019: 7). dologico-da-caderneta-agroecologica/

'Anthropology of the Self and the Other" offers an overview of the trajectories of anthropological studies in recent decades  in Albania– a new anthropology, a plural anthropology – and a sketch of four thematic entry points, conceived as invitations for further inquiry, enabling anthropological journeys into society, politics, economy, and nature.

Jafar Panahi's film Taxi is emblematic of how Iranian filmmakers find creative ways to undermine government-imposed regulations. As a socio-political critique that effectively suspends our doubts regarding the film's degree of improvisation and authenticity, Taxi recursively replicates its content in its own form by luring the Iranian government into demonstrating what the film merely sets out to communicate. In doing so, the film exemplifies a form of creativity within constraints that captures and exceeds those very constraints. By discussing Taxi in analogy to ethnographic practice, this article argues that the captivating qualities of ethnography derive from the narrative trope of captor-turned-captive. Here, incomplete entrapments of the field are used as a device for turning ethnographer and reader into entrapped.

This introduction puts forward capture as an anthropological analytic. Idioms of capture already pervade anthropological descriptions, analyses, and methods. We start by questioning the widespread equivalence between capture and predation, showing that neither of these terms should be read as rifts in sociality but rather as continuations of the social by other means. The significance of the diverse socialities of capture is clarified in relation to previous works that demonstrate how capture folds over and into itself, entrapping not just the prey, but also the captors. By bringing this idea to bear on ethnographic analyses of capture, we argue that capture is frequently deployed as a generic term-a catchword-that simultaneously defines the work of the generic itself as a mode of capture or containment. Lastly, what sets capture apart from notions such as network or entanglement is its recursive potential as a verb and metonym for ethnographic inquiry and representation.

A pedofilia é uma problemática séria enfrentada nos dias de hoje, principalmente com o advento da tecnologia, que se constitui o ambiente mais propício para esses indivíduos se esconderem. A sociedade, inclusive o judiciário, tem uma visão distorcida da pedofilia e acredita que qualquer abusador de crianças é pedófilo o que não é verdade. Necessário se faz a compreensão mais adequada da temática para que Estado possa fazer a abordagem mais acertada e eficiente. O ponto nevrálgico dessa situação é que a pena privativa de liberdade não possui o efeito reparador a esses indivíduos, uma vez que não se tratam de meros pervertidos, mas de pessoas com um problema psiquiátrico intenso que bloqueia a sua autodeterminação. Nesse sentido o melhor artificio para a reabilitação desses sujeitos é o tratamento multidisciplinar com médicos de diversas especialidade e um profissional psicólogo, junto com tratamento medicamentoso, devendo inclusive a sociedade e o Estado estar receptivo à apreciação ...

O presente artigo tem por escopo científico traçar a similitude entre os registros policiais relativos ao compartilhamento de materiais de abuso sexual infantil (CSAM), um dos crimes previstos no Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente e a sua efetiva distribuição virtual. Para tal fim, foi utilizado um software policial de monitoramento sobre as redes de pares (P2P), tendo por recorte metodológico as ocorrências, tanto de compartilhamento de efetivo de material como de registo de ocorrência policial, observadas tão somente no Estado de São Paulo. Por fim, o estudo é capaz de demonstrar que os registros policiais refletem, de maneira fiel, a localidade das ocorrências, ainda que em proporções numéricas menores em relacão às virtuais.

RESUMO Este artigo propõe o debate sobre o atual sistema agroalimentar e suas contradições, apresentando uma experiência significativa de cooperativismo no MST na construção de novos paradigmas sócioprodutivos, que inspira novas práticas sócio-metabólicas na relação entre ser humano e natureza, e entre seres humanos, indicando possíveis formas de superar a crise civilizatória do capital que estamos vivendo. Nele buscamos explicitar as experiências camponesas que buscam relocalizar o sistema alimentar, identificando as dificuldades enfrentadas no processo de estabelecimento de novas matrizes de produção, que técnicas organizacionais e de sociabilidade são desenvolvidas e que estratégias são elaboradas para superar as dificuldades impostas pelo modo de produção capitalista.

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

Against the backdrop of the global refugee crisis, Unsettled Families investigates the parameters that Global North governments and international humanitarian organizations use to classify most displaced families as ineligible for resettlement and, often, as fraudulent. Drawing from long-term fieldwork between Nairobi, Kenya and Columbus, Ohio, Sophia Balakian tells stories of Somali and Congolese refugees navigating a complicated global assemblage of humanitarian organizations, immigration bureaucracies, and national security agencies as they seek permanent new homes. Viewing the concepts of "fraud" and "family" from different vantage points, Balakian shows how these categories begin to blur, or evaporate altogether. Practices that resettlement organizations deem fraudulent are often understood by refugees to be moral actions in an unequal world. Such practices allow them to fulfill obligations to kin-kin defined in ways that exceed boundaries of normative, US frameworks. Bringing together discussions of kinship and humanitarianism, Balakian locates "the family" as a crucial category in processes of producing, policing, and contesting the boundaries of nation-states in the 21st century.

In 2014, the Banyamulenge Congolese community in Nairobi commemorated the tenth anniversary of a massacre in Burundi's Gatumba refugee camp. The anniversary coincided with a Kenyan government directive to deport refugees from the capital city to UN-run camps. In this context, the community invited UNHCR and NGO staff to the memorial, where they connected the violence they experienced in Gatumba to their resistance to future encampment. By hosting humanitarian workers, the community inverted the roles of host and guest, speaking in a collective voice that was impossible in individual bureaucratic interviews. An ethnographic account of the Gatumba memorial broadens boundaries for understanding refugees' resistance to hegemonic regimes. It shows how the community made use of their status as victims, reframed standard roles and narratives, and demanded accountability for past harms. It illuminates the terror of camps and possibilities of cities for the material well-being and political imaginaries of refugees today.

Dominant discourses about refugee resettlement position refugees as passive objects of rescue. Organizations that manage resettlement view the use of professionals or attempts to garner inside information about the process as illegitimate. But resettlement involves active work on the part of people living as refugees, who spend years interviewing, following up with organizations, traveling to different bureaucratic offices, and seeking scarce information about complex, shifting procedures in politically complicated contexts. While scholarship on resettlement in global South locations has often critically investigated categories like "fraud" or "cheating" in the resettlement process, those foci may obscure more mundane ways that people actively work on their own, and others', resettlement futures. Formal brokers, ad hoc helpers, and those who leverage assistance from both inside and outside of their communities, reveal resettlement as not simply a pathway to migration, but a form of work that people living as refugees actively perform.

Este artigo tem como objetivo explorar, num sentido crítico, as considerações de Michel Foucault sobre a "pedofilia". Como se sabe, Foucault produziu diversos textos sobre a sexualidade e a normalização, acerca dos quais irei tratar apresentando suas posições assim como os problemas de algumas das mesmas, sobretudo ligados a certa compreensão de simetria possível nas relações de poder entre adultos e crianças. Vou me servir, em especial, de três textos do corpus foucaultiano: o curso Os anomais (1975), o livro História da sexualidade I: A vontade de saber (de 1976) e a entrevista intitulada A lei do pudor (1978). Não é minha intenção eliminar toda a grande analítica de Foucault sobre os temas por ele tratados ao longo do seu trabalho, mas destacar deficiências em sua análise teórica assim como em suas posições políticas sobre o tema da "pedofilia", entendida aqui como a relação sexual entre maiores e menores de idade.

This chapter presents an ethnographic analysis of diversity in Chitipa District, a multi-ethnic society located in northern Malawi. Employing an anthropological framework, the study investigates how ethnic identities, cultural practices, and social interactions contribute to coexistence within this diverse region. Chitipa is populated by several ethnic groups, including the Lambya, Sukwa, Ndali, Nyiha, Mambwe, Namwanga and Tumbuka, each possessing unique traditions and historical narratives. Through qualitative fieldwork, encompassing in-depth interviews and participant observation, the chapter explores the impact of ethnicity on social cohesion, economic relations, and political engagement. It further emphasizes the significance of intermarriage, linguistic dynamics, and customary practices in both fostering unity and creating divisions among the various groups. The findings contribute to broader discourses on ethnicity, multiculturalism, and identity politics in Southern Africa, providing valuable insights into the complexities of managing diversity within a multi-ethnic society.

The U.S.-Mexico border region has been shaped by more than a century and a half of waves of migration. Initially migrants were attracted by jobs in the U.S. economy and in recent decades migratory flows across the border have been tied to political and social instability in sending countries. A dysfunctional U.S. migration system and inconsistent application of policy by  U.S. administrations, often by executive orders,  has led to large numbers of migrants waiting in Mexican border cities, imposing a huge burden on local communities.

is an English language teacher in France. In 2024, he obtained a Ph.D in History and Civilizations of the English-speaking world from the University Paris Cité, under the direction of Professor Florence Binard, a specialist in British civilization. His thesis entitled "Experiences of gay and bisexual men in Trinidad and Tobago between 2009 and 2020" explored the challenges facing not only same-sex persons but also other members of the LGBTQ+ community. Interviewee profile: Jason Jones is both a citizen of the UK and Trinidad and Tobago. He has been a pro-gay activist and human rights defender for over 30 years. In the UK, he participated in the anti-Section 28 marches of 1988 and was also a member of the Stonewall Immigration Group. In the Caribbean region, he was the cofounder of the first LGBTQ+ advocacy organization in the Southern Caribbean "The Lambda group" and was the founder of "I Am One" in Trinidad in 2012. His most recent achievement was the 2018-landmark win, which allowed for adult consensual same-sex intimacy to be decriminalized under law. Thus, Jones became an icon for LGBTQ+ progress not only in Trinidad and Tobago but other countries of the English-speaking Caribbean who have decided to address these same laws.

Some people have become disenchanted with modern bureaucratic forms and modern governments, and in their attempts to imagine an alternative, have joined the sovereign citizen counterpublic, a right-leaning movement comprised of loosely affiliated groups rejecting the validity of national laws that are present in the United States, Australia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and other countries. These groups focus their energies on legal systems as they resist modern institutions and have developed a shared semiotic ideology about how legal language works and how legal texts should be interpreted. This semiotic ideology hinges upon a particular form of semiotic determinacy; our article unpacks its implications. Sovereign citizens' ideology is antithetical to how institutionally entrenched actors understand the interplay of semiotic determinacy and indeterminacy in legal contexts, which leads their logics and historical narratives to resonate with conspiracy theories. We conclude by exploring how this counterpublic re-configures older strands of Enlightenment and Protestant Reformation logics as resistance in this neoliberal moment.

Much contemporary research on prefigurative legality turns to left-leaning activists for ethnographic insights into practices that call forward an alternative legal world. We turn instead to a right-leaning movement commonly known by scholars as the Pseudolaw movement-or self-named (by some involved) as the sovereign citizen movement-filled with loosely affiliated groups that share a common ideological approach to law. We discuss the underlying logics motivating sovereign citizens' practices, discussing how a nostalgically based form of prefiguration shapes sovereign citizens' responses to contemporary neoliberal dilemmas. We then compare this right-leaning movement's approach to prefigurative legality with the approach of left-leaning activists.

O presente artigo propõe uma análise crítica da Lei nº 15.035/2024 sob a ótica da criminologia e do direito penal contemporâneo. A nova legislação, ao reforçar dispositivos de controle e repressão, contribui para o fortalecimento do Estado penal e para a intensificação da gestão do medo como estratégia de governo. O estudo investiga como o discurso da segurança pública é instrumentalizado para legitimar a expansão do sistema punitivo, com impactos significativos sobre garantias constitucionais, seletividade penal e direitos humanos. Com base em doutrina especializada e referências internacionais, o trabalho reflete sobre os riscos da normalização do estado de exceção e da erosão democrática provocada pela adoção de políticas criminais emergenciais e simbólicas. O artigo conclui destacando a necessidade de resistência acadêmica e institucional frente ao avanço da ideologia da defesa social como fundamento legislativo.

This article precedes a selection of papers written as a result of the seminar on the anthropology of bureaucracy in modern Russia. The text offers a brief overview of the development of research into bureaucracy, where studies are mainly made in a polemic with Max Weber's model of the "ideal" bureaucracy. It considers the most significant works that preceded the emergence of an interest in bureaucracy on the part of social scientists, written in the fields of political science and sociology and united by the method of participant observation. The authors pay attention to the difficulties in distinguishing the anthropology of bureaucracy as an independent field, which, on the one hand, is integrated into political anthropology and on the other hand, tends towards the social studies of professions. The article suggests understanding the anthropology of bureaucracy primarily as a certain viewpoint focusing on how management is implemented and how the "state" is reproduced and felt within bureaucratic institutions. The authors distinguish several popular areas in the field of social research into bureaucracy: critical works analyzing primarily the structural violence of bureaucrats against citizens through client classifications, bureaucratic arbitrariness, etc.; works that focus on the moral and affective aspect of bureaucracy, including the moral dilemmas of employees and their feelings; works devoted to the material world of bureaucracy, where documents become important participants in social interaction; research on the experience of interaction with bureaucracy as a client. In addition, the article provides an overview of existing studies (mainly) of the street-level Russian bureaucracy, performed using anthropological methods within the boundaries of different disciplines.

State discourses on smuggling and trafficking are regulatory technologies that seek to institute moral hierarchies between institutions by villanizing third‐party mediators as dangerous criminals. This article instead studies high‐risk migration and illegality through the actions of migration brokers and from the perspective of aspiring migrants in a place of departure. Seeking to overcome the legal/illegal divide by focusing on interactions at socially constructed state/market boundaries, the article asks two questions: What is the role of legality for aspiring migrants? And what role do states play in the emergence of migration brokers? Based on seventeen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Anglophone Cameroon, between 2007 and 2013, and a case study of two migration brokers, the article demonstrates, first, that aspiring migrants evaluate migration brokers and travel documents in terms of their powers and efficiency, and, second, how migration brokers enact state‐like forms and a...

Selon l’expression bambara Maa ka maaya ka ca a yere kono, « les personnes de la personne sont multiples dans la personne ». Ce proverbe nous semble triplement pertinent pour introduire cette réflexion sur une approche pluraliste du pluralisme juridique dans le cadre de la dynamique d’une élaboration d’une théorie interculturelle du Droit .

Tout d’abord, par rapport à notre problématique nous pouvons commencer par constater que les « pluralismes juridiques » sont multiples dans le pluralisme juridique – aussi nombreux peut–être que les personnes qui s’y intéressent. C’est une première réalité pluraliste qu’il nous faudra garder à l’esprit lors de notre démarche.

Deuxièmement, ce proverbe nous introduit au pluralisme fondamental de la personne qui sous–tend toute approche en termes de pluralisme juridique . On ne saurait raisonner en termes de pluralisme tant que l’on pense sur la base d’éléments unitaires qui seraient juxtaposés. Toute approche véritablement pluraliste du Droit doit s’enraciner dans un « mythe du pluralisme » qui suppose un pluralisme de la personne autant que de la réalité dans laquelle celle–ci s’inscrit . Au niveau de la théorisation , elle nous oblige à nous enraciner dans un paradigme de la complexité (et non pas uniquement de la complication) qui reste une application d’une épistémologie de la simplicité .

Enfin, l’origine bambara du proverbe, nous rappelle qu’au Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Juridique de Paris, c’est le détour par les sociétés africaines qui nous a ouvert au pluralisme – la découverte du pluralisme s’est trouvé intimement liée à une anthropologie du détour et à une démarche interculturelle. Interculturalisme et pluralisme apparaissent ainsi comme profondément liés. On peut même considérer l'interculturalisme et le pluralisme culturel comme deux aspects de la même réalité.

La situation contemporaine de l’humanité se caractérise par un rétrécissement de notre monde. Ce dernier induit deux prises de conscience irrémédiablement liées et cependant contradictoires : d’une part celle de l’unité de notre monde et de sa finitude, et d’autre part celle de la diversité humaine. La contemporanéité  se situe en quelque sorte entre le « village global»  et un « archipel planétaire » , entre « un monde »  et le « choc des civilisations » , entre le « global » et le « local » . Ainsi la réflexion sur l’unité et la diversité humaine, qui constitue le cœur des interrogations anthropologiques, redevient centrale. Les défis de l’altérité, de la complexité et de l’interculturalité se font plus pressants. Et aucun de ces trois pôles ne semble pouvoir être privilégié par rapport aux autres. L’anthropologie du Droit  est plus particulièrement interpellée : enracinée dans le droit dont l’approche moderne se veut universaliste et dans l’anthropologie qui privilégie des approches plus relativistes et travaillant sur des questions contemporaines brûlantes quant à la transformation du champ socio-juridique à l’ère de la globalisation, elle est confrontée au défi de penser le pluralisme. Le pluralisme n’est ni l’universalisme, ni le relativisme . Ce n’est pas non plus un juste milieu entre les deux. C’est plutôt une situation où des visions du monde et de son organisation, toutes également légitimes, coexistent, et où l'on ne peut pas déterminer un point de vue juste qui devrait s’imposer à tous. On ne peut pas non plus se retrancher dans un simple relativisme qui ouvrirait la pente savonneuse pouvant conduire d’un droit à la différence à un droit à l’indifférence  - notre vivre ensemble est en jeu. Si le pluralisme ne permet pas la certitude du point de vue juste dont l’imposition à tous serait légitime il nous oblige à trouver d’autres fondements à notre praxis juridique.

Nous tenterons dans les pages suivantes de proposer quelques pistes pour repenser un Droit pluraliste en nous appuyant sur une réflexion sur les droits de l’homme face à la contemporanéité.

Il riconoscimento ufficiale è un vantaggio che garantisce la perennità e forse lo sviluppo o la rivitalizzazione di tradizioni di guarigione? È uno strumento per migliorare le condizioni di salute di più persone? O è forse una condanna a morte mascherata per i sistemi tradizionali di medicina?

Les trois problématiques de l'État de Droit, des droits de l'homme et de la gouvernance abordées par l'anthropologie du Droit sont intimement liées. Elles constituent autant de voies pour éclairer la question de l'organisation et de la mise en forme de notre vivre ensemble. L'accent mis sur l'un ou l'autre des aspects selon les périodes, reflète indubitablement les contextes historiques dans lesquels se sont développés les recherches. Mais par ailleurs, cette focalisation sur des aspects différents de la pensée occidentale du vivre ensemble et de ses défis face à l'interculturalité a préparé le terrain pour mieux comprendre les situations et défis contemporains.

Comment et ou commencer la narration d’un itinéraire, qui bien qu’encore à ses débuts a néanmoins déjà occupé la majeure partie de ma vie et qui petit à petit révèle de plus en plus clairement ses lignes de force qui sont liées à des approches anthropologiques du Droit, mais s’inscrivent plus largement dans une « quête » vers l’interculturalité ?

O artigo parte do entendimento epistemológico e metodológico do termo Agroecologia e o que esta ciência em construção percebe no campo dos conhecimentos tradicionais, e de que base filosófica busca transformar saber popular em conhecimento científico. O trabalho de especificação do conceito de Agroecologia é realizado através do que esta considera como conhecimento válido, de modo a aprofundar seudebate teórico-conceitual através de uma sistematização de pensamentos de três linhas de práxis agroecológica, porém com sutis diferenças acerca do papel do conhecimento tradicional como parte do reconhecimento da Agroecologia como ciência e suas concepções acerca desses conhecimentosnão sistematizados de forma científica. Foram escolhidos três "manuais de agroecologia", cujos autores Stephen Gliessman, Miguel Altieri e a Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária -EMBRAPA-expressam claramente o pluralismo epistemológico e metodológico acerca do tema, de modo que à pergunta do título coube uma análise nesse viés já consolidado, não apenas pela Agroecologia, de apropriação do conhecimento tradicional pela ciência moderna. Na resposta encontram-se mais aproximações que distanciamentos, notando a contribuição para o reconhecimento dos conhecimentos tradicionais e da própria capacidade cognitiva dos autores pensarem a Agroecologia como uma ciência de transformação, cujo campo é tão vasto quanto forem os modos de se praticar agricultura.

In this article I want to approach the debate on multiculturalism in Mexico as these are circulating around debates and discourses of indigenous rights, emphasizing the tensions that exist among gendered perspectives on identity politics within the indigenous movement and also among Mexican intellectuals. This debate became very important in the Mexican political agenda after a proposal for a law on indigenous rights was discussed and passed by Congress in April 2001. As has happened in other geographic contexts, "women's rights" have been used by feminist and not feminist intellectuals and politicians attempting to disqualify indigenous cultures and traditions and to oppose indigenous peoples' demands for autonomy. 1 Indigenous women have played a very important role in confronting these uses of a discourse about indigenous women's rights as arguments against indigenous cultural rights more generally. Through their participation in a nation-wide organization known as National Congress of Indigenous Women (CNMI), these women are developing a discourse that demands that indigenous rights and women rights are not intrinsically opposed to each other. Their conception of multiculturalism and autonomy emerges from a dynamic perspective on "culture," a vision that, while it claims the right to self-determination, does so from an understanding of identity as an historical construction which is formulated and reformulated in daily living. First, I will describe some of the settings in which the concepts of autonomy and cultural rights are being formulated in contemporary Mexico, and show how these demands represent a new political discourse about self-determination that reaches even 1. The rights of indigenous women were vindicated as an argument against de-colonization movements in Africa and Southeast Asia and are now being used in Afganistan to justify the bombing and destruction of this country, in the name of democracy. Different feminist positions on multiculturalism can be found in Okin (1999). 2. The information related to the Mam area was obtained during the last fifteen years of fieldwork in the southern Mexican border in the framework of various research projects , Hernández Castillo 2001). The information about indigenous women was obtained through participation in different political mobilizations, forums, and congresses of the national Indian Movement in the frame of the research project "New and Old Spaces of Resistance: Indigenous Women, Resistance, and Collective Organization" sponsored by CIESAS and CONACYT. I am grateful to the members of the seminar Gender and Ethnicity of CIESAS:

Cuando uno se interesa en los debates relativos a los derechos del hombre y la diversidad de las culturas, percibimos que los seres humanos, o por menos los que participan en estos debates, parecen apreciar mucho los "ismos": universalismo, relativismo, particularismo, fundamentalismo, pluralismo, multiculturalismo... Con frecuencia estos diversos "ismos" se oponen entre sí, la oposición más común es la que hay entre universalismo y relativismo. ¿Qué hacer?

Nel nostro mondo contemporaneo ci troviamo di fronte a due sfide fondamentali che a mio avviso sono profondamente legate all'emergere di nuovi simboli che ci fanno entrare in un nuovo mito, in un nuovo orizzonte in cui pensare il nostro vivere-insieme. Si tratta dell'interculturalita e della pace.

This chapter presents an ethnographic analysis of diversity in Chitipa District, a multi-ethnic society located in northern Malawi. Employing an anthropological framework, the study investigates how ethnic identities, cultural practices, and social interactions contribute to coexistence within this diverse region. Chitipa is populated by several ethnic groups, including the Lambya, Sukwa, Ndali, Nyiha, Mambwe, Namwanga and Tumbuka, each possessing unique traditions and historical narratives. Through qualitative fieldwork, encompassing in-depth interviews and participant observation, the chapter explores the impact of ethnicity on social cohesion, economic relations, and political engagement. It further emphasizes the significance of intermarriage, linguistic dynamics, and customary practices in both fostering unity and creating divisions among the various groups. The findings contribute to broader discourses on ethnicity, multiculturalism, and identity politics in Southern Africa, providing valuable insights into the complexities of managing diversity within a multi-ethnic society.

Anthropology of Law is facing the major challenge to move from the “edges of Law” (des Confins du Droit to make reference to the title of Norbert Rouland’s book on an anthropological approach to Law) to the core of Law, to the core of legal theory, which for the moment remains almost exclusively monocultural, and to open it up from within. There seems to be a possible meeting point as the aim of legal theory is to give a complete understanding of Law, from a point of view which aims to be universal (because rational) but is in fact Western, whereas at least French legal anthropology in the continuity of Michel Alliots’ work is seeking for a general “non-ethnocentric”, or intercultural, science of Law, which in its turn is in continuity with the anthropological aim formulated by Claude Lévi-Strauss to understand Man in all its generality through the diversity of his/her manifestations, thus introducing the comparative and intercultural elements. Both approaches have a universalizing aim and Law as the object of understanding - that is where they can meet - but the latter does not postulate universality a priori, as a consequence of rational deduction, but reconstructs it through an additive logic which builds on the diversity of observed situations. In the contemporary situation, it seems that the first position is less and less tenable and the second emerges as the only really credible alternative. And it should be taken further and deepened.

La Paix est fondamentale. Ce n’est pas uniquement un problème fondamental ou une question fondamentale. Elle est fondamentale dans le sens qu’elle fait intrinsèquement partie de la Réalité, qu’elle en est un fondement. Après une première prise de contact avec la problématique de la Paix, nous la mettrons en perspective à travers un éclairage bouddhiste ce qui nous permettra ensuite de nous ouvrir à une approche dialogale et transmoderne du Droit et des cultures de la Paix. L’approche dialogale, basée sur l’écoute, nous permettra de nous émanciper de nos approches dialectiques selon une terminologie de Raimon Panikkar. Dans ce sens la démarche transmoderne que nous concrétiserons dans cet article a le sens d’une traversée de la modernité par l’ouverture à des expériences culturelles différentes et à des expériences humaines n’appartenant pas au domaine moderne par excellence : celui de la Raison, du logos.